It would be natural to think that the Liberals’ proposed “Green Shift” plan that purports to cut taxes on income, investment and innovation, and shift those taxes to pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, waste and so on, would have a significant negative impact on Alberta, given the fundamental role played by fossil fuels its economy. And it will — there’s absolutely no doubt about that. The question is what the nature and extent of that impact will be.

David Staples, a “serious” journalist with the Edmonton Journal (who also writes extensively on popular culture), has a short piece (and by short we mean 250 words short) on the CanWest wires today with the alarming headline “Green Shift would bleed Alberta, experts say.” Um, okay. So, we look through the piece to see who the “experts” are making this claim and what do we find? Well, nothing at all really.

Staples starts off by citing some dubious and highly inflammatory remarks made by Liberal MP Ken Boschcoff several months ago that Green Shift is a way to transfer money out of Alberta into the rest of Canada and then moves on to University of Calgary professor David Keith, who shoots down the idea of a wealth transfer out of Alberta and says that some negotiations with the province would be needed. And that’s it. Period. No “experts” saying what’s claimed in the headline at all. Nothing, Nadda, Zip, Zero, Zilch! To put it quite bluntly, this little article is complete, unmitigated, phoned-in BULLSHIT.

Oh, and here’s a kicker, Environment Minister John Baird said earlier in the week that the “Green Shift” might actually be welcomed by the oilsands industry. Of course, he was attempting to make the case that it would create a “pay-and-pollute” system (as opposed to the Conservative “plan”), but still… this is the Conservatives saying that the doom and gloom for Alberta economic scenario they’ve been painting may not actually be true.

Update: Apparently, the print version that appeared in the Edmonton Journal is more extensive than what was posted over the wires by CanWest. Thanks to Gayle in the comments for pointing out the more complete article which is available here. Notwithstanding the headline, it presents a considerably more balanced assessment of how the Liberals’ “Green Shift” carbon tax might impact the Alberta economy.

Update2: Garth has a very good Q&A summary regarding the “Green Shift” on his blog today. What a pity the Liberals didn’t put something like this together ahead of the game to preemptively address these sorts of questions. Oh well. Live and learn, I guess.

66 responses to “Bloody Staples”

The version in the Journal was longer, and I thought, more positive to the Green Shift, despite the headline, which would have been written by the editor, not the reporter.

I am not sure I understand this wealth transfer argument anyway. It is not like the money is in Alberta now – the new tax will create new revenue. Obviously the oil sands, being the biggest polluters, will pay the most of this tax. How does that translate to taking money out of my pocket?

As I understand it, all the “real” experts on the economy, environment, etc. approve of the GreenShift.

Tom Friedman, of Flat Earth series fame, 3 time Pulitzer Prize winner, expert on the Middle East, the oil industry has now delved into environmental issues and has a new book out called “Hot, Flat and Crowed”. In interviews promoting his new book he was talking about Obama and McCain and their environmental plans and said that Obama’s was better – but neither will get the job done. The “only” way is carbon tax.

I think I’d believe him over any of our pathetic Canadian journalists who just hear the word “tax” and make their decision on that.

At the risk of sounding like a paranoid Albertan, does anyone else even care if there is a wealth transfer out of this province? We are wading in money here – seems to me other provinces may want a piece of that pie.

At the risk of sounding like a paranoid Albertan, does anyone else even care if there is a wealth transfer out of this province?

I don’t care. I just want to make sure the oil wealth of Alberta is not allowed to distort the economy and, most importantly, our politics, though undue media influence, astroturfing and lobbying fueled by money. That concerns me, since the Conservatives don’t have anywhere to go in Alberta.

No one in Eastern/Central Canada has ever really benefited from Alberta’s wealth (unless you move there). We import our oil from abroad and don’t even have the luxury of an energy security policy, and yet we are constantly held hostage to the politics and alien culture of that otherwise forgettable province.

Where exactly do you think the majority of transfer payments are coming from, Ti-guy? Alberta pays more into the pot per-capita than any other province, and with “I won’t raise your taxes, I promise” McGuinty doing his best to drive Ontario businesses out of business, it will soon be the only “have” province.

Where exactly do you think the majority of transfer payments are coming from, Ti-guy?

Or here we go…transfer payments.

Throughout most of my life, it’s been Ontarians who’ve paid the most in transfer payments. In absolute sums, Ontario probably still does, although the accounting has become somewhat mystifying of late.

McGuinty doing his best to drive Ontario businesses out of business…

Mr. Flaherty, is that you? I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Dim Jim Flim Flam Flaherty is trolling Liberal blogs…that’s what the little rodent does best, after all.

This is stupid. Ontario businesses have been hurt most due to the high Canadian dollar (whose value is at least partially influenced by federal interest rate policies) and through federal ‘free trade’ policies which have shipped industrial jobs out of the country. The death spiral of the U.S. auto industry (because of poor management, high pension and health insurance costs) has hurt too.

when it’s doing better than other provinces, would rather let another part of the country suffer rather than help them.

How dare you suggest that anyone should parasite off the tireless efforts of Albertans? It took a lot of work to put that bitumen in the ground, you know. Not like in Ontario, where you just have to wave your hands and voilà…a car magically appears.

What I find disturbing is that any province in this country, when it’s doing better than other provinces, would rather let another part of the country suffer rather than help them.

Maybe we are all divided already.

What I find disturbing is that everyone knows that AB’s wealth is due to resource (oil sands) extraction. One day either the resource will be gone, or economies will have transitioned to post petroleum energy sources and oil sands won’t be needed anymore. It is an extremely inefficient, energy intensive and messy way to make oil and will be the first to go if the benefit isn’t there.

Then AB will be back to its agricultural base and won’t be so rich. Burning bridges while they have money is going to make things harder for them when they don’t.

Come on, Dan… SDC is one of those happy few that was lucky… no, virtuous enough to be blessed by GOD with the bountiful riches of the earth… of being able to suck limitless wealth out of the ground after “behemoths” suddenly all fell over and expired 6,000 years ago for some “mysterious” reason… Hallelujah! And those transfer payments… likewise, heaven sent!

It is an extremely inefficient, energy intensive and messy way to make oil and will be the first to go if the benefit isn’t there.

Oh, they know that with diminishing supply, the oil will get even more expensive (and lucrative). With the transition to an alternative energy economy decades away from being complete (particularly when it comes to the major purchaser of that resource, the US, the infrastructure of which cannot be changed to accomodate a non-fossil fuel economy and lifestyle, especially now that the country is insolvent), it does not matter, since a lot of them expect to be Raptured (or just plain dead) by then.

“behemoths” suddenly all fell over and expired 6,000 years ago for some “mysterious” reason…

Mysterious? It was the Noah’s Ark flood! You know, where water appeared out of nowhere, flooded the entire earth beyond the top of Everest, and then disappeared into nowhere. Where all that extra water vapour somehow didn’t make the atmosphere so dense that they would have all died of suffocation. That somehow fresh water fish were able to survive in salt water from the seas washing over lakes (or vice versa.) Where animals from Australia and Antarctica appeared in Disneyesque fashion in the Middle East, were all able to fit on a relatively small ark and then reappear in their native habitat instantly. Where God first told Noah to take 2 of every kind of animal (Gen 6:20) and then changed his mind after Noah built the boat and then told Noah take 7 of every clean animal and 2 of every unclean animal on the ark (Gen 7:2), even though God didn’t get around to telling humans which animals were clean and unclean until centuries later.

With the transition to an alternative energy economy decades away from being complete (particularly when it comes to the major purchaser of that resource, the US, the infrastructure of which cannot be changed to accomodate a non-fossil fuel economy and lifestyle, especially now that the country is insolvent), it does not matter, since a lot of them expect to be Raptured (or just plain dead) by then.

I should have been clear. I don’t think we will transition into a post petroleum economy as much as I believe that our economies will collapse and oil won’t be needed in the way it was.

I am not sure why Albertans want to hang on to “their” money. It is no like the government spends it on things like health care, schools, university, child welfare etc. In fact, I am not sure where it goes.

Perhaps the real problem is people do not want “our” money to pay for your socialist programming.😉

At the risk of being tedious on the subject, I will happily state for the record that the “quality of life” that I enjoyed while living in both Calgary and Edmonton over the span of 15 years was nothing to be sneezed at. We had great community services, recreational facilities, summer programs for the kids, access to great educational institutions, and on and on. Aside from them being rather dreary places to live in some respects, they both had a lot to offer for a young family with kids…

Red: …” I think I’d believe him over any of our pathetic Canadian journalists who just hear the word “tax” and make their decision on that.”

SG: This is a real concern for me too. In fact, I wonder if the demise in Critical Thinking so evident in current political ‘diss-coa(R)se’, which your point reflects, is not indicative of the demise of the Project of Reason, itself.

If we do not understand thinking, in particular our own thinking, how it works, how it works to inform and mis-inform us, then we are lost to rationalizations, reactions and ‘positivistic’ felt-truths.

Critical Thinking is a way to examine our own ‘thinking-into-being’ process, providing course corrections and dare I say ‘learnin’. To loose this capacity is to loose our freedom, I think. It exposes us to “f(R)ee-dumbs” … cotton candy as nutrients for an ine(R)t mind.

The ability to take a theme and so infuse it in the collective conscious, that it pre-empts thinking, is in large part, a product of psychological understanding acquired in the advertising era. It is the ability to create and then speak to a metaphorical structure, a ‘valuez’ system, BEFORE thinking kicks in.

We are all subject to this non-rational response to life. However, being willing to deconstruct our beliefs, our assumptions, etc., is the check that balances our ‘thoughtlessness’. In fact deconstruction might be the ‘purest’ or most unbiased form of thinking we have … ‘Che(R)(R)y-picked’, positivist “p(R)oofs” might be its most contaminated. But it seems to me, in present day, No(R)th Ame(R)ica mind, the latter has paradoxically become the by product of the Age of Reason.

The tolerance of diversity, synonymous with Critical Thought, is exactly the thing Leo Strauss attacks, as evidence for the failure of liberal thought. Attacking the strength of a thing is so Rovian … or should that be the other way round?

Minimally it is a call in the midst of tolerance, to the intolerant. A call to give up the angst of diversity, for the warm, sleepy comfort of ‘sameness’, hegemony by any other term. … The price of admission? Turning responsibility for discomforts of one’s freedom over to some ‘pate(R)nal’ figure.

… with Personal power (and one’s faux-freedom), emanating outta the mimicry of the demagogic, by one’s self … The Ugly No(R)th Ame(R)ican!

Hmmm. Well, not quite sure what to make of all that, but yes, the preemption of rational thought is at the heart of marketing, of course… I mean, that’s a given and has been ever since the time of Edward Bernays… What’s your point?

Sorry, but this massive kind of convoluted, over-thinking (and I know you’re a big fan of Lakoff) seems to miss the point entirely… if indeed there is a point to be found. Striking the right balance of tolerance and intolerance and the deliberate creation of dissonance… precipitating a certain unease, discomfort and troublesome insecurity and so on… these are all familiar devices.

RT – our schools are in crisis. They desperately need a huge influx of money for simple repairs. There are not enough text books, not enough teachers, and not enough schools. In Edmonton they decided to close down inner city schools, forcing children from lower income families to have to rely on public transportation (like these families need any extra expenses).

Like most other provinces, it is almost impossible for people to find a family doctor here. A friend who is a nurse says they are so understaffed at the hospitals that many people are leaving because they cannot deal with the stress.

15 years ago our Child Welfare services would ensure that children and youth were only ever homeless “by choice”. Now, if a youth is over 14 years old and homeless in Edmonton, Child Welfare will not step in and will force that kid to live on the street. I know this because I deal with it every day.

The mental health facilities have also taken a beating, resulting in more and more mentally disturbed people forced to fend for themselves – which generally means living on the street.

A few months ago several agencies came together and held a press conference to outline how desperate things are for people in need in this city. It barely made a blip, and the government, yet again, offered nothing.

A lot of people who live here will tell you things are great – but then, they are not the ones dealing with the homeless. I know from speaking to colleagues in other provinces that most places provide much more in terms of support for their children in need. What makes it worse is that we are the richest province in the country. Apparantly. people who do not vote do not get to share in those riches.

Gayle, I have friends in Alberta and they say the same as what you’ve shared here. What I can’t understand is why there is so much money in Alberta that is not being used to HELP Alberta!! And how do Conservatives keep getting elected when they seem to be completely ignoring the welfare of their citizens in their own dominated province?

I can understand why you don’t want money flowing out. I was just suggesting that, in cases where a province is able to take care of it’s own (which Alberta doesn’t seem to be doing) and has that covered, after that, they should be able to contribute to the country. But I agree with you, Albertans are being shafted and it makes no sense. The money is there.

The Dion Liberal Green Shift is intended to tax more of what we don’t want .. GHG pollution … and reduce taxes on what we want .. our incomes.

Unfortunately this sounds like some kind of devious in-and-out taxation scheme which makes Canadians nervous, particularly since it is being promoted by the Liberals with a not-so-good saleman Dion.

What the Liberals fail to divulge is exactly what and who will be carbon taxed to the tune of $15Billion .. while the income tax credits sound somewhat nebulous requiring complex calculations on the Liberal.ca website calculator.

Obviously, Dion’s promotion of the Green Shift has failed no matter how beneficial it may be. It’s also obvious that Dion’s leadership has failed to attract Canadians to the Liberal party. Where do we go from here ..??!!!

After how many years now, I think I s-t-i-l-l find myself in shock over the influence of the non-rational and irrational in social, political and philosophic discourse in N.A. … ergo the emotional juice for the rant.

Conceptually, I seem to have trouble accepting the current regression in ‘collective consciousness’. I seem to remember an more rational discourse in the decades past. I seem to remember that blatant falsehoods were challenged more. or more to the point, there was the possibility for embarrassment if caught purporting them. We seem to be loosing the ability to blush.

I seem to feel we are in this struggle, not about ideas, but over the value of ‘thinking’ itself … and as such, the human experience. That generations of western thought is culminating in its avoidance, this rejection of self-conscious thinking, boggles me. I can not seem guard myself from its impact. It creates in me, not to be too dramatic, shock and awe. I mean, what is McCane doing even being competitive with Obama? And the MSM discourse!?

I know that there are various levels of analysis that can describe the various influence and their interactions that ‘explain’ things … sorta. Nevertheless, I always saw our ability to reason as our ultimate bulwark against such anti-civility. I can’t seem to get over it … over rise of anti-rationalism and its persistence, particularly give that it is coming out of what I imagine to have been the progressive tradition of Reason …

No, sorry to disappoint everyone, but I’m not an Albertan; I’m a British Columbian, now living in (ick) Ontario. BC is so close to the “have/have not” line that it actually received transfer payments several years ago, rather than paying into them. Now, if those “greedy” Albertans were as “greedy” as you’d like to believe, they would have already told the rest of the country to sod off a long time ago, and that is EXACTLY what will happen if Dion tries to shove his NEP II down Albertans’ throats; unlike Quebec, which has made an art of playing both sides of separatism by bitching about “les maudits Anglais”, then agreeing to have their sullied honour cleansed with sufficient money from the rest of us, Alberta CAN and WILL tell Canada to go fuck itself with a crooked broomstick with no difficulty whatsoever. The people in downtown TO who are kvetching about those “nasty, greedy old Albertans” have no idea whatsoever about how deeply resented Turdeau’s NEP was and is, and how badly it raped an entire province simply to buy seats in ON and QC. If there is one thing that will drive Alberta OUT of the country, it will be an NEP-like scheme like the “green shift” that “shifts green” from Alberta to Ottawa politicians so they can go on a spending spree to guarantee themselves nice comfy fur for live. Alberta has already paid more than its fair share into this country, and is happy to continue sharing its wealth up until ON and QC decide to kill the golden goose; who’s going to pay for all those expensive promises then?

Rgardless of WHAT the CD Howe Institute claims, if Albertans feel they are getting reamed by Central Canada for the benefit of Central Canada (AGAIN), then they will flock en masse to the separatist option; this goes for practically every Albertan I know, including people who have deep Canadian roots and who have willing shed their blood for Canada.
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There will be no need for any Clarity Act reference if Alberta decides to let those eastern bastards freeze in the dark, Ti-Guy; it will be a clear question, with a clear result.
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And my bowels are fine, thanks🙂

Perhaps YOU would not vote to separate, Gayle, but that is most certainly not the case for the vast majority of the rest of Albertans; they only need 50% plus 1, remember?
What gives you the idea I’m “screaming”, Ti-Guy? I’m simply stating a fact, and if you don’t want to believe that fact, you’re perfectly free not to. Once again, I ask who is going to pay for all those expensive promises if Alberta gets tired of being taken advantage of, and Ontario is unable to pass a law requiring every North American to buy a pickup truck built in one of its auto plants?

SDC — I think if you look at the present outflow of money from Alberta into the federal coffers then, by your own standard, you (well if you were living in Alberta and weren’t from BC and actually had some vested interest in the matter) would be actively working for separation as it is right now.

You (and again, provided you were living in Alberta and weren’t from BC and actually had some vested interest in the matter) should perhaps be concerning yourself more with the really shitty deal Alberta gets in terms of royalties from the oil companies.

“Perhaps YOU would not vote to separate, Gayle, but that is most certainly not the case for the vast majority of the rest of Albertans…”

You know, I am pretty comfortable with my position, what with the fact I actually live here, and actually talk to Albertans pretty much every single day and all…

The “vast majority” may whine, and complain, but if they wanted to separate they would have done something a little more concrete than voting for some guy from the “Western Canada Concept” 20 years ago…

If Albertans were not so complacent, they would be demanding action from Harper, since he has yet to come through on abolishing the gun registry, banning same sex marriage, the Triple E Senate etc, etc.

If 50% plus 1 isn’t enough of a majority to separate, Ti-Guy, then what on earth were the Liberals sweating bullets over when it came to Quebec’s “kind of-sort of” referendums? As said, if Albertans are asked to decide if they want to remain part of Canada, it will be a clear question (no “sovereignty-association” BS), and they will provide a clear answer.
RT, this only proves my point that those “nasty, greedy old Albertans” aren’t nearly as nasty or greedy as you would make them out to be; they have happily paid into the pot for the benefit of ALL Canadians, and all without much more than an occasional grumble. Yet when groups like the Liberal Party of Canada say that isn’t enough, and you would essentially “nationalize” Alberta’s resources so that Central Canada can use them to continue living fat and happy, or to toss around pre-election goodies to buy seats, it is no different than the NEP. Given the choice between that, or of making a go of it on their own, I have absolutely no doubt that a clear majority of Albertans (and quite possibly a slim majority of British Columbians at the same time) would say “Thanks, it’s been fun, but we’re tired of supporting your welfare state for you” and vote to secede.
Gayle, for the most part, Albertans are not unreasonable people, and they are usually willing to go along to get along; but they also remember what happened the LAST time that a Liberal with a “you can trust me, honest” big idea got into power, and used it as an opportunity to rape their province, and they will not roll over for the same treatment again. If you think Williams and NFLD is pissed because NFLD would be receiving less equalization because of their oil revenue, that is NOTHING compared to how Alberta would react to being ripped off on the grand scale of the NEP again.